


A Christmas Promise

by AelinElentiya



Series: The 100 [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/M, promise rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5400785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AelinElentiya/pseuds/AelinElentiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Christmas, and Bellamy has something to tell Clarke.</p><p>**Rated M for some swear words**</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Christmas Promise

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea in my head last night and I decided to write it. Bellarke Christmas Fluff. Enjoy!! :)

§

 

This is the worst Christmas Eve ever, Clarke thinks as she gulps the last of her champagne. She looks around the room of people dressed in suits and dresses that look too tight, and finds her mother. She’s in the middle of a crowd, talking and doing what Abby Griffin does best—pretending. She’s pretending to be happy, pretending to like the people that she invited to the crap holiday party, pretending to enjoy herself, pretending that she has a good relationship with her daughter, that her daughter isn’t a med school drop out.  
Clarke isn’t even sure why she came to the party in the first place. It’s not like she speaks to her mom that often. Maybe once a month if they’re not “busy” (and by busy, she means they usually just make an excuse to avoid talking). But she got the invitation to her Mom’s Christmas party in the mail weeks ago, and she told herself then she wasn’t going to go.  
That was before Raven decided to spend Christmas Eve at her boyfriends, and Octavia’s spending it with hers, and even Monty and Miller are together tonight, and Clarke is recently single and the only person she knows that’s not with someone else is Bellamy, but the last thing she wants to do is call him and ask if she can spend Christmas Eve at his apartment. So she pulled on a red dress that was too tight and drove the half an hour to her Mom’s big lonely house in the suburbs. And now she’s spending Christmas Eve with a bunch of successful rich people that she doesn’t know, and she’s never been more miserable.  
Her mom is laughing, though. And she’s standing a little too close with Marcus Kane, her coworker, and Clarke has this sick feeling in her stomach looking at them, because her mom actually looks happy.  
She shouldn’t even be here. She doesn’t belong here. She might share Abby’s blood, but it feels like they’re strangers. They haven’t been close since her Dad died years ago, and there’s a part of her that wants to go over and at least try, try to pretend like it’s okay, the part of her that doesn’t want to be alone on Christmas, but she can’t do it. She’s not like her mother, who can pretend everything’s okay and hope that if she does it long enough it might actually be. But Clarke has never been good at lying—especially to herself.  
So she sets her finished drink on a table, and slips out of the party. In the foyer, she grabs her coat and shrugs it on, and takes her phone out of her clutch. She sends a text to her mom, letting her know she’s heading out and to enjoy the rest of her evening.  
Then she leaves, slipping quietly out the door without anyone noticing, and gets into her car and drives away.  
No one should have to spend Christmas Eve miserable and alone. 

*** 

 

Half an hour later, she’s home. Well, in the city, anyway. But she doesn’t go to the apartment she shares with Raven; she doesn’t want to be alone tonight. And maybe it’s selfish, but she doesn’t care at this point.  
So she goes to Bellamy’s. On the way, she stops at his favourite fast food place and grabs food, because she’s hungry (all they had at the party was boring appetizers) and maybe if she bribes him, he won’t mind if she stays.  
His condo, which he rents with Murphy (who’s spending Christmas out of town), is lit up with red and green Christmas lights, and she can see the tree all lit up in the window—the one she helped put up—and it makes her smile. She gets out of her car, grabs the bag of McDonald’s and walks up the front steps.  
She only knocks once before he opens the door, and he smiles. “About time,” he says and he sounds relieved. He was expecting her, she realizes. “Come in.”  
She follows him into the house, and he holds the food while she takes off her coat. His house is nice and warm, and she relishes in the familiarness of it. She can smell popcorn. “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she says, following him into the living room.  
“Nah. It’s fine. You look nice, by the way,” he says. “Where were you?”  
She shrugs, settling into the couch next to him. “I went to my Mom’s Christmas party,” she says. He looks at her, surprised. “I know. It was a bad idea. But... I don’t know. Raven left for Wick’s, and Octavia’s at Lincoln’s, and Monty and Miller are spending the night together... and I didn’t want to come here because I always do that and I feel like I depend on you too much, so I went to my Mom’s. But it was even worse. I didn’t know anyone, and it was really miserable, so I just left.”  
“You’re always welcome here,” he says. “You know that.”  
She doesn’t answer. He says things like that and he has no idea how it makes her feel. Because he’s her best friend, but God, it’s hard to pretend that’s it when he says things like that. So she just helps him take the McDonald’s out of the bag. There’s some Christmas movie on TV, and they end up snuggled under the blanket together, eating McDonald’s and laughing at the terrible acting.  
“Do you really not mind?” She asks finally. He looks at her, question marks in his eyes. “That I come here so much? I mean, I don’t want to... intrude. Or whatever.”  
“Intrude? On what? My non-existent social life? Clarke, trust me. I actually enjoy having you here,” he says. “You’re my best friend. Of course I don’t mind.”  
She smiles. “Okay,” she says. “Thank you, I guess.”  
“For what?” He asks.  
She’s not sure for a moment, how to answer. “For... not letting me be alone on Christmas Eve,” she says.  
He smiles, a soft little smile that makes her heart do backflips. “What are friends for?” He says. “And actually, I was kind of expecting you. I knew Raven and everyone were gone, so I was just waiting for you to decide that you didn’t want to be alone. That sounds really desperate and lonely, doesn’t it?”  
“Not really. I’m the one who drove a half hour to attend a boring Christmas party I didn’t want to be at just because I was too stubborn to come over here,” she says.  
“Next time, I’ll just call you first,” he says. “I should’ve just called you. I guess we were both stubborn.”  
She laughs. They fall silent, then, and finish their food as the movie finishes. The dress is starting to bug her, though, and she’s trying not to shiver, but she secretly inches closer to him, hoping his body warmth will warm her up. It doesn’t.  
She keeps inching closer, and closer, until she’s sitting right against him and their hands brush. The blanket is pulled all the way up to her chin.  
“Are you cold?” He asks.  
She shakes her head. “N-no,” she says.  
“Liar,” he says. “As nice as that dress is, it’s probably not doing much for body warmth. Stay here. I’ll get you some clothes.”  
He slides out from under the blanket, and she wants to protest. But she doesn’t. Instead, she watches him leave, and go upstairs to find her some clothes. Octavia might have left some PJs or something, but she half doubts it. And anyway, it wouldn’t fit her. His sister’s way smaller and more slender than her.  
He comes back down a few minutes later, a pair of PJ pants and an old sweatshirt in his arms. “Here. These are mine, so they’ll be a bit big on you, but they’ll have to do,” he says.  
She hesitates, but decides she’s too cold to argue, so she gets off the couch and grabs the clothes from him. “Thanks,” she mumbles, avoiding looking at him as she half-runs to the main floor bathroom.  
As soon as the bathroom door is closed behind her, she exhales. She strips out of her dress and tights, and pulls on the pyjamas. There was an old T-shirt of his along with the sweatshirt, and while the pants and the sweatshirt have to be rolled up a few times, they’re quite comfortable, if a little worn. Plus, they smell like him, a fact that she enjoys more than she wants to admit. She breathes in his scent before gathering up her dress and leaving the bathroom.  
He’s not in the living room when she returns, but she finds him in the kitchen. He’s making what appears to be hot chocolate. “You look so tiny in those,” he says, laughing.  
She rolls her eyes. “Better than freezing, right?” She says. “What are you making?”  
“Hot chocolate,” he says. “It’s Christmas Eve. What’s better than hot chocolate on Christmas Eve? Plus there’s popcorn in the microwave. Do you want marshmallows?”  
She nods, smiling as he tops her hot chocolate with marshmallows. He has the proper ones, not the tiny coloured ones that she never liked, even as a kid. They just don’t taste right to her. The microwave dings, and Clarke takes the popcorn out, grabbing a bowl out of the cupboard and pouring it into it. Bellamy grabs the hot chocolate, and she carries the popcorn.  
They dim the lights, leaving just the tree, and pull the blanket over them. He doesn’t say anything when she scoots closer to him. They find a channel that has The Polar Express on TV, and it’s just started, so they settle in to watch.  
This is the best Christmas Eve ever, she thinks to herself. 

 

*** 

 

Somehow, Clarke ends up falling asleep shortly after finishing her hot chocolate. Her head slumps against Bellamy’s shoulder, and in seconds, she’s fast asleep.  
He pulls the blanket up over her, smiling a little. She looks so peaceful, he thinks, when she’s asleep. And his sweatshirt looks cute on her. He might let her keep it.  
It’s so stupid, he thinks. How sure he was that she was going to come. But he knew it. He’d been listening for the sound of a car pulling up his driveway, and as soon as it did, he’d felt his heart do a little jump and he had practically bolted to the door to greet her.  
He’d been expecting his Christmas Eve to be lonely, and boring and disappointing, but Clarke is here, and now he’s actually glad that Octavia decided she wanted to spend Christmas Eve at Lincoln’s, because they’d just gotten engaged and their first Christmas as an engaged couple was an important thing.  
He checks his phone, careful not to let the light disturb her, and realizes that it’s almost midnight already. She’s fast asleep, and he slips out from under her, gently placing a couple of pillows under her head in place of his shoulder, and he goes upstairs. His stocking and Octavia’s is already hung over the mantel (he doesn’t have a fireplace, but whatever), but there’s a very important one missing.  
Bellamy finds the box in the storage closet easily enough. It’s at the very top, tucked behind blankets, and it reads CHRISTMAS in big letters. He takes it out carefully, and brings it to his bedroom. There, he opens it up. The box usually contains the ornaments from his childhood—the few that his mother had bought him and the plenty of homemade ones that he made with Octavia even when they didn’t have enough money to afford a tree—and the other Christmas items. but since they’re all on the tree, the box is mostly empty. Except for a single stocking. It’s old and faded, but still beautiful.  
His mothers. It’s been years since he and Octavia put it up. His mother always made sure they had their stockings, even when there was no tree. His and O’s have their names on them, but his mothers is just plain—red and white, that’s all. There’s a small bottle of gold paint on Bellamy’s desk, and he sits at his desk with the stocking in hand.  
Carefully, making sure he doesn’t mess up any of the letters, he writes a name on the white part of the stocking. The stocking has never had a name written on it before. They never got around to adding it, and when their mother died... well, there didn’t seem to be a point. They’d hung it every year, until they met Clarke at that art festival and she stuck around, and Bellamy decided that he wanted to tuck it away so he could give it to her. Except, she’s been their friend for four years and he still hasn’t given it to her yet. It felt too... meaningful, to give their mother’s stocking to the girl he was in love with without her knowing it.  
Bellamy finishes painting the name on the stocking, and then goes to put the box back in the closet in the hallway. He grabs the stocking and a tiny gift-wrapped box out of his dresser and goes back downstairs.  
Clarke is still asleep, snuggled against the pillows, the blanket tucked under her chin. Bellamy hangs the stocking on the extra hook on the mantel, tucking the little box inside of it. He turns off the lights in the living room and kitchen, leaving only the tree on, and shuts off the TV. He brings the dishes into the kitchen.  
She’s woken up when he returns—turning the lights off must’ve woken her—and sitting up, yawning. “What time is it?” She asks.  
“It’s midnight,” he answers. “I was just gonna let you sleep on the couch.”  
She yawns again. “I should go,” she says.  
“Why? It’s Christmas,” he says. “And besides, I don’t think you should drive anymore. It’s too dark out.”  
“Are you... You really want me to stay?” She asks. He’s asked her to stay before, but she must feel weird about it being a holiday. If she’s noticed the stocking, she hasn’t mentioned it yet. He’s kind of glad.  
“Of course,” he says. “Octavia’s staying at Lincoln’s. I’m going there tomorrow to have dinner and stuff, but you can come with me. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. It’s better than spending Christmas alone, right?”  
“I guess,” she says. She’s looking away again. Why does she keep doing that? It drives him mad, when she looks away every time he says certain things. “Can I sleep in the guest room, though? I’m not sure my back would thank me for sleeping on a couch all night.”  
Suddenly, he gets an idea. It’s a stupid idea, but he doesn’t care. “You... you could sleep in my room,” he hedges. “It’s just... the guest room’s a mess with the Christmas presents and stuff. They’re all over the bed and everything.”  
She’s surprised. She’s not looking at him, still, but he can see the surprise on her face. “Where will you sleep?” She almost whispers.  
“I could sleep on the couch, if it makes you uncomfortable to share a bed,” he says. But that’s not what he wants.  
“No,” she says, quickly. Her cheeks flush.  
He wants her to look at him. “Clarke,” he says, stepping closer. “Will you please look at me? You keep doing this. You keep... not looking at me, and it’s driving me nuts.”  
She looks up, slowly. Her eyes sort of flicker upwards, and he sees in her eyes that she’s battling something. “Don’t sleep on the couch,” she says. “We can share a bed. We’re best friends, right?”  
“Right,” he says.  
She steps around him. “I’ll meet you upstairs. Is there a spare toothbrush so I can brush my teeth?”  
“The orange one,” he says automatically.  
She kisses his cheek, and then disappears up the stairs. Bellamy stares after her, stunned. She very rarely does that anymore. She used to, all the time, the first couple years of their friendship. But lately? No kisses on the cheek. He’s kind of missed them, he realizes. She’s been pulling away like that a lot lately. She rarely hugs him, unless she’s in a very good mood, and she used to hold his hand sometimes, but not anymore. And when they were watching movies, she would always put her head on his shoulder when she got tired. But she’s stopped doing that, too. Tonight was the closest she’s been to him in months, and it was only because she was cold and exhausted.  
He hears the sink turn off finally, and after a moment when he’s sure she’ll be in bed, he goes up the stairs. He’s already in his PJs, but he can’t sleep with a shirt on, so he pulls it off as he heads up the stairs. She looks a little stunned when he enters the bedroom, but says nothing.  
He slides in beside her, easily, like he’s done it a thousand times before. He moves closer to her. “Clarke?” He says, quietly. “I miss you.” It’s stupid, and the words just come out. He doesn’t mean to say them, but he does.  
“I’m right here,” she says, sounding confused.  
He sighs. “No, I mean... I miss... I miss how it used to be, between us,” he says. “We used to be so close, and... it feels like you’ve been pulling away.”  
“I’ve been busy, Bell. With my job and things,” she says. “I still see you almost four days a week.”  
She’s talking to him, but she sounds disconnected, too short. It bothers him.  
“I know,” he says. “That’s not what I meant. I miss the closeness,” he admits. “I miss being able to know what you were thinking. I feel like I never know anymore. You seem so distant lately, and especially since... since Finn. And when you do look at me, I can’t tell what you’re feeling anymore. And you’re talking to me, but you’re not really talking to me. Your words are more careful now.”  
“Bellamy,” she says, and it’s almost a plea. She turns to look at him. “Don’t. Don’t do this, okay?”  
“Why? Why can’t I?” He challenges.  
She looks almost sad. “Because I don’t want you to know,” she says. “I can’t.”  
“We’re supposed to be best friends,” he says. “Best friends, Clarke, remember? We’re supposed to be able to tell each other everything.”  
“Please,” she says. “I don’t want to fight with you tonight. It’s Christmas. Let’s just go to sleep, okay?”  
And she turns over on her side, flips off the light, and that’s the end of it. Bellamy sits up in the darkness for a few more minutes, calming his anger, and finally, he rolls over. He’s facing the back of her head.  
(Clarke is crying silently, but Bellamy doesn’t see.)

 

*** 

 

The next morning, Clarke wakes to find Bellamy’s arm has wrapped around her, and she’s been pulled close to him. He must have done it in his sleep. At some point in the night, she took off the sweatshirt because she was boiling in it, so her arm brushes against his bare chest. She shivers.  
His grip is too tight to get out of without waking him up, but she manages to get herself in a sitting position, and she looks at him. His hair is over his eyes a little, and she fights the urge to brush the curl away. God, he looks beautiful in sleep, even if he snores. The sunlight coming through the curtains casts a gold glow in the room and illuminates his face, and she can count every one of the freckles on his nose and cheeks.  
She tries not to look at his chest, or the perfect, toned curve of his shoulder, or the arm that is thrown over her waist, tanned with just the right amount of hair shining in the morning light. But it’s impossible not to admire him, and now, when he’s sleeping, is the perfect time to do so. So she stares at him for a long while.  
Until she remembers that it’s Christmas, and her stomach starts to growl a little, and the arm around her waist puts a little too much pressure on her bladder, and she suddenly really has to use the bathroom. Plus, she wants to wash her face. Her eyes are probably puffy from crying, and she knows her breath stinks.  
She nudges him, lightly at first, not really wanting to disturb him when he looks so peaceful. But it’s almost eight in the morning, and she really has to pee. So, she shakes his shoulder roughly for a few minutes, and then, he finally opens his eyes.  
He blinks in surprise when he sees her, and a lazy smile appears on his lips.  
“Merry Christmas,” Clarke says, smiling, too.  
He grins at her. “Merry Christmas,” he replies. He seems to realize then that his arm is around her, and he pulls it back so quickly he probably pulls a muscle doing it.  
“Thank God,” Clarke says.  
She jumps out of bed before he can even do anything, and runs to the bathroom and locks the door.  
She’s never been more relieved to use a toilet in her life. Plus, she got out of there fast enough that he probably didn’t even notice that she’d been crying. She definitely didn’t want to have that conversation on Christmas morning.  
When she’s done on the toilet, she washes her face with a wash cloth, and uses some of O’s skin cream to moisturize. She brushes her hair, too, and her teeth. Feeling much better after some freshening up, she leaves the bathroom.  
Bellamy’s not in the bedroom, so she goes downstairs. She must have taken longer than she thought, because there’s a bunch of presents now under the tree. Not a lot of them—certainly not as many as she’d had growing up; her parents loved to spoil her at Christmas—but at least a dozen.  
“Feel better?” He asks, as she enters the living room.  
She nods, smiling, and sits down on the couch. “Much. Not a bad haul,” she says, nodding to the presents. “Someone was very good this year.”  
He snorts. “More like, someone worked very hard to be able to afford all that,” he says. “But most of them are for Octavia. I think there’s maybe a few in there for me that O snuck in, but I’m not complaining.”  
He’s taken the stockings off the mantel, and they’re sitting on the coffee table. She stares at the red one, the one that has Clarke in gold letters on the top. “You got me a stocking?” She half whispers.  
“Sort of,” he says, sitting next to her. “It was... it was my Mom’s. When she was alive, I mean. It never had a name on it, so... I added that. We used to have it up every year. But when we met, I decided to tuck it away so I could give it to you. I should’ve given it to you a long time ago, but I guess it didn’t feel right.”  
She feels a little emotional, but she swears not to cry. Who cries over a stocking, really? She is not that pathetic. “Why... didn’t it feel right?” She asks, almost hesitantly.  
“Because, there was too much meaning behind it,” he says. “My mom told me that only someone who is really special to you, someone who you want to be part of your life forever, gets a stocking in your home.”  
“Bellamy,” she breathes, and damn it all, there are tears in her eyes. She blinks them away.  
He smiles. “Open it,” he says.  
She takes the stocking, handling it as if it is fragile. This is clearly something precious to him, and yet, he’s given it to her. She carefully reaches inside of it, and pulls out a little gift-wrapped package. It looks so much like a ring box that she actually panics for a moment, her heart doing little jumps, before she tells herself to stop it, and unwraps the gift.  
It is a ring box. But it’s white, not black, and she knows it can’t be a ring. It must be earrings or something, she thinks.  
She opens the lid, and gasps.  
It’s a ring. A tiny silver ring, with three ruby hearts in the centre. There’s an engraving on the inside, and when she reads the words written, her heart stops.  
I love you.  
She almost drops it. But she doesn’t. She just stares at it, then she snaps the lid shut, and she sets it and her stocking back on the table, and gets up. She walks away, into the front hallway.  
“Clarke!” Bellamy calls after her. “Clarke, stop. Wait!”  
She turns around, her coat in her hand, glaring at him. “Is this some kind of a joke?” She yells. “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Bellamy?”  
He flinches. “It’s not what you think,” he says. “It’s not an engagement ring, I swear. It’s a promise ring.”  
She decides it’s worse. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She demands.  
“Clarke,” he says. “What it says on the ring, I mean it. I love you. I’ve been in love with you... well, I don’t know how long. Maybe since we met. I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you. But you always say you don’t believe in love and you’ve definitely wanted nothing to do with it since Finn, and since Lexa. But God, I can’t deny it anymore. You’re my best friend, but I love you. I love you so much I can’t even understand it sometimes. I know, the idea of it scares you. That’s why I got you the promise ring. It’s a literal promise, Clarke. I swear, I will never hurt you, or betray you. I will do right by you. I respect you, and I will honour your heart because I know how many times it’s been broken. I promise to love you always, to protect you, to comfort you, to be there for you.”  
She stares at him. “You can’t promise that. You can’t say those things,” she says, her voice shaking. “Bellamy, don’t. Please don’t do this.”  
“No,” he says. “No. You don’t get to push me away, Clarke. You don’t get to run and hide, not with me. I know you better than anyone. And the thing is? You know it would be different with me. That you would be safe with me, and happy. And I think that scares you more than anything. That you could possibly be happy again, that someone could actually love you the way you deserve to be loved.”  
He steps closer, and closer until there’s no space between them left. And his arm wraps around her waist and he pulls her forward. She doesn’t even try to fight—it’s pointless anyway. She can’t deny what she’s fought for so long now. To pretend that she doesn’t love him, too, would be a lie. And Clarke is so sick of lies.  
So when he kisses her, his breath hot and his lips gentle, she doesn’t hold back. It’s like he broke a wall of glass around her heart, and she lets herself feel again, the way she hasn’t felt since Lexa. She pours everything into it when she kisses him back, and he gasps. She loops her arms around his neck and tangles her fingers into his hair, and she somehow manages to push them against the wall.  
There is fire in their kiss. Clarke has never been kissed like this, like he means it. Like he actually truly loves her.  
“Bellamy,” she whispers against his mouth. “Say it again.”  
He’s breathing hard, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling. “I love you,” he says.  
She closes her eyes for a second. “Then you should probably know,” she says, when she opens them again. “That I love you, too.”  
He actually cries in relief. Tears fall down his cheeks.  
It stuns her for a moment. She can’t remember if she’s ever seen him cry. “Thank God,” he says, his voice choked.  
And this time, she kisses him first. 

*** 

 

Somehow, later, they find their way back to the living room. And the kisses pause long enough for Bellamy to take the promise ring from the box, and slip it on Clarke’s right hand. She is crying as he does, and he whispers to her again that he loves her, and that he will never hurt her, that her heart is always safe with him.  
And she believes it when he says it. Because Bellamy has been her best friend for four years, and he might just be the only person in her life that hasn’t somehow broken her heart. So when he promises to protect and honour it, she believes him.  
Later, they are lying on the couch, and he’s holding her, when he says:  
“This is the best Christmas ever.”  
And Clarke agrees.


End file.
